Clickbank

Program Details

Base Commission

Up to 75%

Payment Frequency

Weekly, Personalized

Payment Type

Direct Deposit, Wire Transfer, Check

Accepted Countries

Global

Clickbank Affiliate Marketplace: Overview

Clickbank is one of the most popular beginner affiliate networks, marketplaces, slash publishing/advertising platforms on the Web. Many veterans use the platform to make money online, but it tends to fall to the wayside as affiliates expand (more on that later).

On Clickbank, affiliate marketers can find thousands of fantastic promotional products and offers covering almost every type of niche and market. There’s some bad mixed in but it remains one of the easier platforms to begin exploring affiliate marketing because of its wide offer selection.

Many will join, test a campaign, and swear-off the platform. Others find great success promoting its affiliate offers – it’s a mixed bag.

The platform offers plenty of digital products to promote ebooks, software, and services.

What to Expect with Clickbank

The Clickbank affiliate marketplace covers all your major categories:

Arts & Entertainment

Business & Investing

Employment & Jobs

Home & Garden

Parenting & Families

Software & Services

… and a dozen others no matter what type of site or campaign you’re building.

Joining the network is easy and flexible.

It’s recommended you have some semblance of a working website or social account attracting leads as they’ll go through a review. Once on board, you can source affiliate links to thousands of products – matching them to your niche or starting new projects based on affiliate offers drawing your attention!

Clickbank includes a multitude of helpful affiliate resources, too:

Clickbank University

Hundreds of details affiliate tutorials

Regular newsletter packed with info

Its main downside, though, is its many lackluster products and services.

Others are downright weird and make you say “uhhhh… what?”.

Is there really a market for this?

The platform has attracted many disingenuous brands and creators over the years making it a bit of a hassle sorting good from bad. They’re making a good effort in cleaning the listings, but many scummy products remain. Here’s hoping they’ll increase the curation efforts.

Here are some extra tips when browsing Clickbank for the first time:

Look at the gravity stat next to a product as this indicator shares how many affiliates are making money with the promotion

Visit the landing page seeing how professional it appears, if its trustworthy, and whether the promotion is up-to-date (a lot lag and look atrocious!)

Check the social signals of these brands and products to see if they’re truly legit or just giving you a ride via outdated stats and false images

In all, Clickbank is a great starting point for affiliates wanting to promote digital goods. You’ll need to put in the effort vetting affiliate offers. Dig deep, understand what you’re promoting, and who’s behind the product. Use your instincts of “would I want to buy this?” and “do I trust this?”.

Cons

A lot of scummy, crappy products to sort through

It’s easy to burn your followers with one of its horrendous promotions

Relaxed promotional restrictions (this is a negative because of abuse)

Clickbank’s affiliate tracking tools aren’t exactly top-of-the-line, either. The platform has been active since 1998 and seen some revisions. It’d be nice if they did a better overhaul of the interface and upped the usability of its backend.

Our Final Clickbank Review and Thoughts

Here’s the thing:

Clickbank is a good introduction to affiliate marketing if you’re willing to sort through the garbage. There are a lot of winners on the platform. These independent programs aren’t your typical grab-bag of promotions found elsewhere – this means a lot to experiment and explore.

But:

It’s a pain sorting through so much crap. Plus, a lot of products that do look decent tend to have several backend sales and funnels milking everything out of the conversion. This is great when you look at commissions, but it tends to burn the community – that’s no good.